By Mike Bush
575magazine.com editor
The 28th Annual Heritage Award Dinner is scheduled for 6:15 p.m. Oct. 6 at the Roswell Convention and Visitor's Center.
This year's recipients, “Sages of the Southeast” are not only two of the major role players of establishing the Historical Museum and Archives for Roswell and the Historical Society, but have made themselves fixtures in the community due to their constant efforts to make Roswell and the surrounding area a better place to live.
Arthur Robert McQuiddy was born in Sedalia, Mo., in 1918. After serving as a Naval aviator during World War II, he moved to Roswell in 1946 to become the editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch. He was the editor during the famous 1947 Roswell Incident. He later became executive secretary of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association.
McQuiddy served as public relations director for U.S. Steel and was vice president for corporate communications with International Harvester, where he had worldwide responsibility for advertising, public relations, stockholder relations and assistant to the chairman of the board.
Over the past 25 years he has served as president of the Chaves County Historical Society (now the Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico). He has served on the boards of the United Way, the Roswell Symphony, the Roswell Museum and Art Center and its foundation, the New Mexico Humanities Commission and the New Mexico Rehabilitation Center Foundation, of which he was president.
Later, McQuiddy served as director of Conventions and Visitors Bureau and economic development specialist with the Roswell Chamber of Commerce.
Elvis E. Fleming, a native Texan, moved to Roswell in 1969 when he accepted a position as instructor of history at Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell, where he remained for 28 years. Over the years, he was promoted to assistant professor and received the Presidential Award, the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Award, and the Kosa Merit Award twice. Elvis was named to Who's Who in the West in 1984.
In 1992, he became chairman of the Division of Liberal Arts at ENMU-R. He was the first Roswell campus retiree to be granted emeritus status by the ENMU board of regents in 1997.
Since retiring, he has served on the board of the Historical Society for Southeast New Mexico, the Historical society of New Mexico and the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board. Elvis has been the chief archivist and organizer for the Historical Society's archives since it opened in 1976.
Fleming has written several books and articles about the history of Southeast New Mexico receiving awards for his writings. In 2003, he was awarded the Gaspar Perez de Villagra Award by the Historical Society of New Mexico in recognition of his biography of the “Father of Roswell,” called Captain Joseph C. Lea: From Confederate Guerrilla to New Mexico Patriot. The National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration awarded Elvis the 2004 American Cowboy Culture Award in Western History. Elvis is a true preserver of history.